Tuesday, January 23, 2007

News: Love Rave Review, Rn'R Debate

The first reviews are trickling in for Love Reign O'er Me...

Pearl Jam has always taken its covers seriously, be they Victoria Williams` "Crazy Mary" or Neil Young`s "Rockin` in the Free World." But it has ratcheted up its interpretive skills for this version of "Love Reign O`er Me" by frontman Eddie Vedder`s beloved Who. Vedder`s screams are positively goose bump-inducing in what is among his most intense vocal performances ever.A full orchestral arrangement and a long piano intro, a la the original 'Quadrophenia' album version, add heft to this gripping update, which is already garnering rock airplay. For now, the only other way to hear this potent reminder of Pearl Jam`s rock power is in the upcoming Adam Sandler film 'Reign Over Me.'

There has been a bit of a debate about the Rock n' Roll Hall Of Fame process for induction, and one site had a run through of candidates who are at risk of not entering when they become eligible, and PJ was one mentioned....

Why they might make the Hall:You can't talk about grunge without talking about Pearl Jam, and grunge is an easy genre for the stodgier voters to latch onto. Sure, it probably couldn't have happened without punk, but grunge definitely couldn't have happened without, say, The Allman Brothers. And guess who's already in the Hall?Why they might not:Of course, you also can't talk about grunge without talking about Nirvana, a Hall sure-thing whose truncated career let it avoid Pearl Jam's slowly diminishing artistic and commercial returns.Odds: 3-1. Pearl Jam never sold out. It sold a lot of records. It's out there rocking right now. It's in.